Tuesday 27 December 2011

25 laws that would instantly improve London

Gavin McInnes recently wrote an article for Taki’s Magazine entitled “10 laws that would instantly improve New York”. Here’s my numerically inflated London version.

1. Tourists who think the top of the escalator during rush hour is the best time and place to consult a map to be instantly deported.

2. “Innit” speak to be outlawed – offenders to be sent to special classes to be taught how to speak cheery, old-fashioned, non-threatening cockney. Those using “innit” speak above a certain decibel level (usually groups of teenage girls trying to upset members of the public) to have their tongues surgically removed. Innit.

3. Any Big Issue seller who speaks with a foreign accent to be driven to the nearest airport and placed on the first plane back to where they came from – the more dangerous that country is, the better. Also, any British-accented BI seller found plying their trade at any shop entrance to be put on the next bus to their city of origin, and banned from ever visiting London again.

4. The public to be allowed to physically attack chuggers at will – especially those wearing themed coloured sweaters - without fear of prosecution.

5. Licensed-to-kill armed guards on all buses at all times, and posted at all bus stops near state schools at chucking-out time.

6. Any driver caught failing to signal when changing lane to be banned from driving in perpetuity: ditto any driver too short to see over the steering wheel.

7. No part of the body between the knee, the elbow and the throat to be displayed in public at any time, no matter what the weather: offenders will be made to wear clown costumes for six months. Fat people caught doing this will, in addition, have their jaws wired for the same period.

8. If anyone is caught talking on the phone via a hands-free device in a public place, their phone will be crushed underfoot, and they will be barred from owning any form of mobile communications device for five years.

9. Groups of young Italians using public transport to be limited to six in number: otherwise, the ensuing noise and chaos – no matter how good natured - is unbearable.

10. Dustbinmen to be ordered to sweep up the mounds of crap they invariably leave behind them as they go along – if they don't, they'll be thrown into the grindy, churny machines at the back of their lorries.

11. Builders to be banned from wandering up and down the pavement outside the house they’re working on, swearing into their mobile phones – ditto the playing of transistor radios by workmen, who must surely have heard of MP3 players and headphones by now.

12. Dog owners who leave their animals to bark unchecked to have klaxons sounded in their ears until they have been rendered permanently deaf.

13. Shop assistants to be given a stringent English comprehensibility test before being allowed to deal with members of the public.

14. Shop temperatures to be moderated to suit customers, not shop assistants – i.e. people wearing winter coats shouldn’t have to sweat or disrobe so that surly staff can slouch around in short-sleeved shirts.

15. All forms of recorded music to be banned from all public places, including shops, pubs and restaurants.

16. Councils to be forced to fill in potholes within 24 hours of their first appearance (the money to do this would be generated by abolishing all locall authority jobs with the words "outreach", "community" or "adviser" in the title.)

17. All private 4x4 vehicles to be banned from London, unless owners can produce a certificate proving that their main residence is a country estate, and that their main source of income is agricultural. The children of any mother found driving children to school in a 4x4 (invariably down the middle of narrow roads while talking on the mobile) will be immediately taken into care.

18. The terms “community spokesperson” or “community leader” to be banned, and anyone caught describing themselves as such to be imprisoned. These people are simply self-important, self-appointed busybodies without jobs.

19. Any driver caught parking on a double yellow line, thereby forcing cyclists out into potentially dangerous traffic, to have their car confiscated and destroyed in a controlled explosion.

20. Armed police to be placed at every intersection on busy shopping streets, such as Oxford Street – just like they do in New York.

21. Anyone caught dropping even a scrap of litter on the ground to be made to clean one hundred square yards of busy pavement using only their tongue.

22. Anyone using a leaf-blower to have it inserted so far down one ear, it emerges from the other.

23. Anyone who rings your bell at any time selling tea towels to have one applied in the form of a tourniquet - to their neck.

24. Anyone playing music in their garden, or holding noisy, drunken conversations into the early hours on warm summer evenings when everyone has their windows open to have a special "dementor" device implanted which will wake them up every time they fall asleep for a year. 

25. All" Occupy" protesters to be given 24  hours to pack up and clear out of the pubic space they've ruining, leaving the place as they found it. Failure to comply will result in being blasted with water cannons filled with pig slurry. Thespians, pop stars, comedians and clergy who have expressed solidarity will be required to join the protesters in time to be hosed along with them.

2 comments:

  1. In his tribute to Toothpick Charlie at the "Friends of Italian Opera" Dinner Little Napoleon famously said: "Some people say that certain people are getting too big for their spats....I say, to err is human, to forgive is divine."

    This is a season for forgiveness. I myself, for example, have already forgiven my local GP for prescribing the drug Omeprazole to me just before Christmas and thus putting me in the same state as Jack Nicholsen in the final scene of "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest" over the Festive Season.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This is indeed the season for forgiveness - but only if the transgressors repent. The problem nowadays is that most wrongdoers inhabit a blithely narcissistic universe in which the rights of others are a matter of utter indifference. And then that massive twerp, the Archtwassock of Canterbury comes along and tells them it's not their fault!

    ReplyDelete